Timber roads have created a significant environmental problem in the forests of our country. On public lands alone, 377,000 miles of these roads exist in various stages of use and disrepair. These roads contribute to flooding, dangerous slides and, most importantly, threaten the habitat of salmon in the Pacific Northwest by damaging rivers and streams. Many find these roads on public land particularly galling since, to some extent, they were built with taxpayer money through purchaser road credits given to the companies which purchased the right to log these public lands.

I completely agree with all of the above concerns. As a new member of Congress, however, I have found determining how to solve the problem to be more complicated than many believe. A very well-intentioned campaign has been launched to stop subsidizing the building of these damaging roads. I strongly agree that we need to stop the damage caused by these roads. The question I have been forced to tangle with is whether simply cutting the $41.5 million from the Forest Service budget and eliminating the $50 million cap on the use of the Purchaser Road Credit program accomplishes this goal.

First, it is important to remember that, unless we are prepared to stop using wood and paper products, we will continue to need logging. And if we need logging, roads to access the forest will also be needed. We can do it better and in a manner that protects the environment to a far greater extent, but I am not of the mind that our nation can afford to stop logging altogether.

Second, we must be aware of the reasons for the subsidy that is now provided for the building of timber roads on public lands. We offer that subsidy in part to assure that the roads built on public lands by the timber companies are of a higher environmental standard than the roads now built on private land for logging. The lower the quality of the road, the greater the damage to the environment. What we the taxpayers get out of the subsidy, supposedly, isn't just the economic benefit of jobs created by the timber industry, but a more environmentally protected forest. Obviously, if we didn't log at all we wouldn't need the roads at all and this wouldn't be an issue, but remember the paragraph before this one.

Third, there is the issue of maintaining the 377,000 miles of existing roads. The further a road deteriorates, the greater the risk of environmental damage as described above. In cutting $91 million from the Forest Service budget, there was a risk to the repair of the existing road system. While I am comfortable eliminating funds for new roads, I was not convinced that elimination of all reconstruction funds would have been the best environmental policy.

Which brings me to the crux of the problem I faced in deciding whether or not to vote for the amendment to cut the budget and eliminate the program. I have been told that some portion of that money goes to repair and maintain existing roads. Both the road credit and the reconstruction portions of the money go in part to that purpose, according to the forest service. Now, I have also been strongly told by the environmental community that that simply isn't so. Diligent research on my part has been unable to solve this discrepancy of opinion.

Further, the amendment simply cut the money, it did not instruct the forest service as to the policy behind the cut. I would have preferred to direct the forest service to either fix or eliminate the existing roads, which are an environmental hazard, and not build any new roads in roadless areas. The Forest Service does not always conduct its business in the most efficient way, and I feel that Congress needs to thoroughly examine its practices, evaluate its budget accountability, and make systemic changes. I felt there existed a substantial risk of the $41.5 million being cut by the forest service from wherever they saw fit, potentially placing at further risk the already backlogged maintenance needs. I also saw a risk that the timber companies, even if the subsidy was taken away from new roads as intended by the supporters of the amendment, would simply negotiate a lower price for the rights to log public lands in light of the lost subsidy and then, on their own, build logging roads even less environmentally sound than the existing ones being built with the oversight of the forest service.

Despite all of the above concerns, I was inclined to support both cuts. In my mind, the supposed environmental benefit of the subsidy has almost been completely lost by the utter failure of both the Forest Service and the timber companies to maintain the roads or outright eliminate them after the timber companies finished logging. Once the logging finished, the Forest Service and timber companies didn't care anymore and left us with an environmental mess. I felt it was time to send a message to both the Forest Service and timber companies that their practices weren't good enough.

However, three hours before the vote, Congressman Norm Dicks offered a compromise amendment: reduce the construction/reconstruction money to the level requested by the Clinton Administration and cut the road credit program in half. The amendment's supporters, including Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, said that this level would provide no funds for new roads and all the money would go to improve the sorry state of the existing roads. The opponents disagreed, saying the whole $41.5 must be cut and the Purchaser Road Credit totally eliminated. In the toughest decision of my short time in Congress, I supported the Dicks amendment and it narrowly passed.

Time will better reveal the wisdom of my choice, but I want my central goal to be clear. We must do something about not only future roads to be built, but more importantly, about the existing 377,000 miles of roads that are such a dangerous threat to so many aspects of our environment. I still struggle with the question of whether these cuts will help or hurt that goal, but I am sure of one thing--it can at best be only the first small step in a substantially larger project.